Duck:

• +

  • Suggests ways in which relationship breakdown can be reversed
  • Useful as it recognises that different repair strategies are more effective at some points in the breakdown than at others
  • IE Duck recommends that people in the intra-psychic phase could be encouraged to focus their worrying on the positive aspects of their partner
  • As a feature of the dyadic phase is communication, any attempt to improve this and wider social skills could be beneficial in fostering greater stability in the relationship

  Insights can be used in relationships counselling to help people through difficult times
• COUNTERPOINTS:

  • The model is based on research into relationship breakdown in individualist cultures, especially the US.
  • According to Moghaddam et al relationships in individualist cultures are generally voluntary and frequently come to an end (for example, divorce)
  • But relationships in collectivist cultures are less easy to end and involve the wider family. In fact the whole conception of a romantic relationship differs between cultures.

  This means the model's application would not be useful in all cultures.
• LIMITATION:

  • Model (including the newer version) is that it underexplains the early phases of breakdown
  • This is because much of the research is retrospective
  • pp in research studies generally report their experiences some time after the relationship has ended, so what they recall might not always be accurate
  • This is especially true of the early stages - by definition the early phases occur 'longer ago
  • Partners can be in the intra-psychic phase for a long time so recall of it may be particularly distorted

  Model may not explain the early part of the breakdown process as well as later phases